Despite the weather being less than ideal I decided to use a break in
the clouds to give my newly acquired Antares
905 a quick test. Conditions were quite misty with a warm
dew forming on most surfaces.

Quick Test of the Antares 905

Quickly set up the 905 and roughly polar
aligned the mount. Dropped in my new 32mm
eyepiece and swung the 'scope around to
M45. Despite not using the red-dot finder I'd
ordered with the 'scope (it needed aligning and I suspected that I
wouldn't have enough time to do that and to observe
something too) I managed to get the cluster in the field of view
with very little effort.

My initial impression was that the image was crisp and bright.
There was no obvious false colour anywhere in the field. I then
switch to the 25mm eyepiece and found that
the quality of the image was just as good.

I then decided to try what might have been an unfair test: I
pointed the 905 at Saturn. After finding it (with
very little effort) in the 25mm eyepiece I
switched to the 6mm eyepiece. I was
delighted to note that the image appeared crisp and sharp, still
with no obvious false colour.

Despite the conditions being less than ideal, and despite the fact
that the 'scope had been given no cool-down time at all, I'd
happily say that the view I had of Saturn was the 2nd
or 3rd best view I've had since I got back into
observing a year ago. The Cassini Division
kept popping in and out of view, as did a hint of banding on the
planet. If Saturn looks like this in the 905 in less-than-ideal
conditions I'd be interested to see what it would look like in
ideal
conditions.

At this point I decided to give the 6mm
eyepiece a go along with the 2x
barlow but at that moment cloud rolled in and obscured
Saturn (and, quickly, the rest of the sky). Given that rain had
been forecast I decided to quickly pack up and call it a night.